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is the largest state in the u.s. and 60% of its over 653 square miles is land administered as part of the national park system. to learn about the history and culture of the state. beginning with project chariot.

came up to alaska unannounced. by burying and detonating multiple nuclear bombs. the gigantic crater a mile long all the dirt would be ejected as high as a stratosphere the sea would a russian and you would have this instant time. it might grow in the dark. it was part of a federal government. there were an agency of almost unlimited power. we head on's answer to anybody.

these atomic fire just came up. and they were faced down with guys that has food. they have fled the nazis. set up with a long of other brilliant physicists. in the manhattan project. they have to be lit turned loose to the team effort.

which was seen past it. in the thermal nuclear bomb. she was such a powerful force. in such a powerful physicist with loss las palmas and continue to develop. both the fusion bombs. of course it was all secret until the first explosion there was one test in new mexico but nobody knew what it was. there were the two bombs dropped. there was a lot of sentiment probably. to hail the advent of the atomic age as a very positive thing.

for one thing may be as some of the political people argued a war would become obsolete because the lessons were too powerful and no one would dare use them. it was a great euphoria actually about this time over all things atomic. to the point where atomic physicists were look to as enlightened people on how we should manage our educational system in the country. you remember perhaps you've read and seen the pictures that whole era of looking towards a space into the atomic future. the electricity was said to be soon to be too cheap to meet

her. there would be nuclear airplanes and powered ships with this great era that was going to be pressured -- ushered in. the really devastating contamination that comes from the whole nuclear process from mining uranium all the way through any kind of explosion or power generation. we have toxic waste that will outlast civilization. it needs to be managed to be on the life span of civilization. that was all happening. it was part of the cultural push for this sort of thing but that emerging in the late 50s people began to associate a fallout from atmospheric testing with certain human problems.

nuclear test band treaties. they test nuclear weapons. but if he could convince people it was a positive thing. it have relatively good public support. under the name peaceful youth he could continue to test, develop refined what were explosives that could be used as weapons. it's like they came to alaska for a couple of reasons. they wanted it to be remote. touching off a nuclear bombs. things get shook. there is radiation relief. there is a seismic effect. there's also just the shockwave above ground. they wanted a remote place. you want as few people around

as possible. they felt like they have very little political clout and couldn't really in the village of eskimo people who were nonwhite and non- proficient in the english language. fewer number. and every metric a political influence they were low. i think that was not lost on these guys. they ask of the survey to look around. where would be a good place. that might be relatively remote are quite remote. relatively remote from villages. and where the harbor might be useful. whether they might sustain such an excavation. and there really isn't very many good sites and article alaska. to support the harbor. they are very shallow for the most part.

it has no harbor. later to shore. they would have like to put one near gnome but it did not work out. there was no harbor. there was asked actual natural resources. there can base it at the creek.

it was can be 2.4 megatons of energy. 2.4million tons of tnt. if you loaded all of that on to flatbed trucks. in a convoy literally bumper to bumper it would stretch from fairbanks alaska. it was something like 40%. of all the firepower expended in world war ii. this would've created the kind of epic contamination that undoubtedly would mean that

basco people for quite a radius around their certainly tens of miles scores of miles would never go back. wherever the wind happened to be blowing that day. it would've been pasted with contamination. with the worst nuclear accident. with a couple of little huts. they were occupied seasonally. they might travel in that direction. caribou hunting. the bluffs themselves were utilized. the people lived a consistent life.

and caribou in the hills. nobody was a permanent resident there. the nearest village was a town called point hope. it's the name it's been given. it is on a spit of land. that points back towards asia. and the village villages at the tip of that. the oldest continuously occupied it goes back centuries. a village for quite a while. thousands of pounds of meat. which they could store underground. and so word went out.

they filtered back. finally filtered back. so when they learned about it. they immediately have the reaction. they demanded that the delegation come talk to them. and that happens in march of 1960 and some scientists and they were not pleased. we don't want it. and when we say that we mean it. 4-foot plus.

we are pretty sure you don't want to bomb your place where you live and just give them hell. they said they wanted. the people were very smart. they tape-recorded everything. when they came in their suits. two tape recorders are running. the atomic energy commission people testing in the pacific

of that day. when they told eskimo people otherwise. they painted a very benign picture has the effect of human health and on the food in most. and eskimo people have their own sources of information. the red life magazine which had covered the 50 tests in the pacific. and people died from the exposure. some of them have served in the military. one was even a member of the cleanup crew. they were not without sources of information. they challenged what they were hearing and later got more information and ended up writing a letter to president

kennedy and writing letters to the atomic energy commission. they said we claimed the slant as our land and you they hold in trust for us until it's adjudicated. and you can't give it. to become a nuclear waste land. it legally. and they were right. i think it was quite fascinating and that that atomic energy commission i don't know if anybody's ever done a study of this but i think they were one of the very early confessional practitioners a public relations they really understood how to get into the conversation that is widely in the public. they have to speaker bureaus their little magazines for children who come to the school's they had people go to

the schools. they have professional pr people on staff. you see some of them in the archives. the sunny side of the atom. our friend the adam. with the sprightly music and the cheerful little episodes with the wonders of the adam. they've course worked very hard within alaska. they worked over the press. in the press was very taken by the argument. of the atomic scientist.

literally he told his professors at the united states ever met says it's safe that's all we need to hear. to the notion of what science is and what a university is. nevertheless he was a big booster and it meant federal dollars coming into the state and into his university. it meant growth and development. and in the city and in the state development is the byword. if we can get federal dollars to build and grow it's a sin to oppose it. the state of alaska. broadly endorsed the project the scientists at the university ratcheted up their opposition. and one of the outcomes of all this is that tyler's group did find a series of scientific

studies. maybe to placate the objecting scientist at ua. maybe because they thought they were important. is not completely clear. prior to a project and then had ever been done. i think ever anywhere. essentially it prefigured the modern environmental impact report. it would not be acquired. this was in the late 50s. that is another thing that came out of chariot.

fish, weather. studies of all kinds. in studies to include the human use of that area. by the native people and their's assistance. forty-two different studies. it was this big. and what they started to show with some of the scientists coming out of fairbanks here. they started to show around the world there had been problems with radiation moving up through the food chain demand. in the lower states when fallout from an atmospheric test in nevada or summer what dump radioactive dust onto plants.

pretty soon it's in their milk. they are metabolized like nutrients. it can end up in your bones it could end up in your muscles. the tissues of these animals were becoming radioactive. in the arctic it was different though. in the lower latitudes and grasslands. grass dies off every year. and then the new plants might take some of those up there. they tended to discriminate against them somewhat. in alaska we did not had grasslands. we have tundra. in tundra plants contain a lot of what are called lichens.

they are a funny little plant that is a rootless essentially and grabs that nutrition from airborne dust. it is sitting there designed to capture the fallout or any particles that are coming down. and incorporating it into its tissues. it did not die off every year. it could live 70 years. so now you've a terrible coming around eating lichen and he may graze over many acres. and he is collecting the fallout that has come down not just this year but in all previous years going back decades. concentrating that into his body know about that you have the eskimo guy who i think they used to eat on the order of seven caribou per year some number like that. so now you're concentrating those even further.

the radiation could get in bigger quantities. they figure this out by looking at the studies done. even though the aec has carefully not designed studies to test that. the eskimo protest was getting national play.

as the starting to be in public relation terms. they probably could've done it. they have done everything i they could before. i think it became a pr program for them. and so at the same time there were a developments happening. this is getting a delayed year after year now because of the protest and the lengths of the studies. they are doing more testing in nevada and they are learning some things that the chariot explosion would have taught them. there is less need for it from their point of view. they declare it's not necessary anymore.

we might do but we might not. we are to hold in the band. you can see that. designed to answer. they could do anything they want too. they shut off hundred kilotons. it was a crater big enough. i had been too at the edge of it and looked out on it. it's massive. the dust from that caused the people in st. george utah to have to turn on their street lights midday. all that radioactive dust. and immediately on the

explosion of that shot. they released a press release. it was answered. it was can give us. we don't need the chariots. it was written before the explosion. they were clearly trying to withdraw. and save as much face as they could. and to this day 50 years later had not set it's canceled. it was an ardent opponent. whatever the testbed treaty might be put forward. any sort of arms control.

he was a hawk. whenever they found the republican in ministration. even into the george bush i think he got the medal of freedom george w push. he was a very renowned respected and listen to elder in the scientific and in the nuclear arms community. interestingly he came back to alaska in the late '80s it was when reagan was pushing star wars which was a space-based missile defense system using lasers.

it was all something conducted on the back of the envelope practically. and the ones they do have is funny also. that's another story. in a way. when basing this laser missiles. on the north slope of alaska. strategically. they came back to alaska.

here he comes back again. with the defense. what the project to protect america. has a lot of similarities. and some of the devices involved. i was able to interview him. he just exploded. with their own nuclear blast.

i was perfectly appropriate. we have plenty of that. we don't have as the project chariot. he threw us out. that recording is in the archives. without his permission. there was no good answer from him. it wasn't problematic. it didn't make sense.

it wasn't proposed for the reasons they gave. the whole thing was nonsense. i believe that's why he did what he did. the list of his motivations. was to protect america. i think he gave way to many lesser motives as well. he wasn't doing what he thought was right. for the good of the country as he thought. and in so doing with the

prerogatives. that's not how it works. you don't get to keep the information from us and decide for us what is best for us. we get to decide even if we are imperfect. even if we don't know all you know. we do not feed our prerogative to authorities as a whole nature of our government. he didn't quite get that. that is part of the bargain of democracy. with the scene up and argue. in free society it has to be a skeptical one. that is the way we protect our freedom. the mount robert tramway is the only area. it rises 1800 feet from doc in downtown juneau. they are viewed as a city. we visit the heritage institute.

[indiscernible] my ancient name it has been lost in the meaning of it. it means a woman his stance in the place of a man. i am eagle. from the thunderbird clan. i'd love to welcome people.

we were great entrepreneurs. i would also note it was a woman who controlled the trade and if the women didn't approve of the trade they could do the trade transaction. we could transport all the way down to washington.

as long as they stay in that fort in the nighttime. other european groups that were coming to southeast alaska. a group some people like to say that even our art flourished because we were able to have things to help us refine our art. it was still very much the traditional culture. they began to think that they needed to change our culture.

they have heard about the policy. they wanted to suppress native culture. in a simile s into the larger society. we definitely wanted at the the benefits of the larger society. i think we were like other people. we want the best of both. they acknowledged the traditional laws. for example if there was a dispute. demanded the payment. a decision was made that they didn't need to adhere to our loss and then they begin to impose their laws on us.

at that point in time. it would be in the late 1800s 1900. we really need to do that. and do that with the laws that are affecting us. our people were taught how to speak english. great stories about how they would were taught how to speak english. great stories about how they would they wanted to learn english. they will begin to influence those institutions they became very politically active.

the discriminatory laws. to promote claw -- cross cultural understanding. not only do we want to perpetuate and enhance our culture. our thesis is the shame of being a native person came from the outside. came from the policeman. at and a very personal level. i was actually taken from my family.

the cultural values. in the practices. it's a pagan. and you need to change. a lot of our people suffer from that. a lot of them were placed in boarding schools. and we are feeling the suffering. it wasn't a happy time. no natives allowed. and it was actually. when we're building this building.

no natives allowed. we will use the same font. it was very real. the antidiscrimination act was enacted for very real reasons when we go to the movies. we would have to sit in the back. we went to segregated schools. it was very real. it is up for the event. in which we celebrate the survival. the culture is strong. it's vibrant. includes dance, song.

i don't know. if they attended the celebration. they would've heard the young children speaking. we are well on the way to restrain the language. we still have a long way to go. they are really becoming the model in terms of cultural language and restoration our cultures are vibrant i wear my crest on my different jewelry to show who i am. and identify that i am an eagle. a special relationship to the sun. i've spears to help me. i would say the culture is strong and if people have seen

at the celebration in 2018. i think they would've agreed with me. fairbanks is located in alaska's interior.

the instant that that knowledge spread. everyone knew that this was gonna change the state of alaska for good. the pipeline came about. with that court delays and really environmental battles over the future of alaska. and when congress acted in 1973 which was about the time of the arab oil embargo. it moved ahead really rapidly. it was completed in the summer of 1977. looking back at it was a fairly intense and rapid place. it was really what brought a

lot of newcomers to alaska. with the gold discoveries. and that really held its way up until about world war i. the alaska railroad was built. during the world war i era. its construction made a town like fairbanks sustainable. for the first time it was possible to get decent transportation from the coast into the interior of alaska and was possible to ship cargo and freight here. i gave it sort of an economic

basis. with the arrival of world war ii. and since that time has been heavy military presence in alaska and that is ongoing till this day so the government economy has long been a major element. ever found in north america. it has been steadily declining since that time. and how the basis is. what the north coast.

as to the east of the arctic national life refuge which has been in the news for many decades now about the oil expirations should be allowed there. it proceeds more or less directly straight south to valdez. after it was discovered the oil companies had the north slope. they got the alaska pipeline service company. it was a consortium and they as a committee they agreed to get this in belts. they usually don't like to cooperate with each other. in this case they have to cooperate in order to get their oil to market. at one time there was seven world companies in this consortium.

pipeline is 800 miles long and about half of it is aboveground. and so good rule of thumb is where ever wherever it is aboveground the soil conditions are not very good. and this took about that. $10billion. this pipeline was really the first major test of the environmental protection agency. i have just been created in the nixon administration. the original proposal was that the entire length would be buried and it was really the united states geological survey and others who said no you can't do that because of the port soil conditions and

you need to elevate the pipeline. so this technology that you see here is developed in response environmental worries that if you wanted it to last. and not damage the environment to take lots of special precautions. and on the tubes here. they are designed to help keep the soil frozen far underneath we were standing and keep the pipeline stable. it was built on these and so it set up. so can move back-and-forth back and forth in case of an earthquake. we do have earthquakes there. and we do move with the pipeline some. it have a fairly strong and good environmental record notable exception to all that. is the oil spill. it was a major catastrophe. while that was not on the land portion of the 800-mile

project. it was part of the system. to understand the time it's good to go back and remember what happened in the 1970s the oil embargo of the early 1970s really shook up the united states. the gas lines that occurred. and build the momentum. to get them to approve this project. and once that happened the oil companies knew that they have millions of barrels of oil waiting to get to market but they would not be making any money and they want to be able to profit on the at all until the pipeline was finished. said they built it as quickly as they could do it. in order to get the pipeline fell. they would not be making any money.

until the first barrel of oil got shipped out. they made an agreement with the labor unions. they wanted everybody to work together and they wanted to do it rapidly. that's why the construction went on 70s a week throughout the year. multiple shifts most of the time. the late 1975. there were 20,000 people employed from one end of this project to the other. as the largest single thing that was going on in alaska at the time. no conversation took place in fairbanks in those years without the words pipeline coming up within 30 seconds or so. the town was really overrun by construction workers. and when it was 28,000 people employed maybe over the years 70,000 people worked on them.

a lot of people that lived in fairbanks that have been a fairly sedated town really had trouble adjusting to this. there were no real roads. most of them that were built in the community in the highways. came about after the project. the traffic jams believe it or not where a huge nightmare because everything was congested. in the turnovers at jobs in town. it was severe. there was a joke in one bank about giving tellers seniority pins if they stayed on the job for a month. it was just like constant turnover constant turmoil in the community. in all sorts of problems that came from this really invasion. and that's what everybody referred to it as.

and they were here because the money was good. so the oil flow began in june of 1977. and what alaska discovered after that was is there something that we should known all along but it really hit home the iranian oil crisis that occurred in the late 1970s. that's when it really began flowing into alaska after the price of oil shot up so that conflict in iran. that began to be a pattern it was directly impacted in a major way by events that took place thousands of miles from here. in other words we became insanely tied to the world or oil market and they have no

control over the oil market. for better or for worse. it was found on state land. the really plus for the state of alaska was when it became a state and it was given an option of choosing certain lands. theology early on figured in the slant on the north slope would be good to early on

figured this land on the north slope would be good to the economy would have been entirely different. but the state geologist selected that land and release it to the oil companies. they retained an oil interest on that land so 18 of the oil belongs to the state and so the state has relies on that that 18 share the cash value of it to help it. plus the severance tax that the state collects on the rest of the oil so it has collected. with the many tens of billions of dollars annually provided in the economy. it was great concern. all of this oil money would spit in immediately. they adopted a constitutional amendment to save a% of the royalties. and then create the alaska permanent fund. still collecting millions of dollars each year going into that account. as we create that unique

system by which residents receive a check each year from the earnings of the alaska permanent fund. it's the one part of the state government that is popular in alaska. one of the things that struck me was how often i would think about that. this is like putting a scar across the mona lisa. as a kind of language that was used at the time. and the supporters of the set is like a thread across a basketball gym. that would be different ways the people had looking at it. the environmental fight. and the bitterness of it. that occurred in the 1970s has really faded into the background here. it has become an accepted part of the background.

to be accustomed to what you see around you. and they get the idea that it's always been there. this is a popular tourist viewpoint here where thousands of people come every year to take a look at that pipeline and see it up close. it's a symbol of modern alaska in many ways. a 13 mind all long glacier. as one of 38 glaciers in the juneau pipeline. they discharge enough water to

fill 40 million olympic size. there was some butt in anchorage. but the time got to work i knew all about it. how could this happen. the second reaction was just shocked at the enormity of it. they spelled 11 miles. 11,000 square miles of ocean before it was done. the scale was inconceivable. where reworking and what were you working and what was your job there. i was a reporter at the time primarily in doing investigative work. but also covering business. i have covered oil even before this bill. can you tell us what the

history of the oil industry was in alaska how large was it. the modern oil industry that we know today. got it started alaska in 1967 when there was a huge oil strike. the pipeline began operating in 1973 and that's when the tanker traffic sounded again. the oil industry in alaska from the day oil was discovered head a mind share in this state. it was instantly recognized at the biggest source of funding for state government for a long time it was the only source that mattered. the oil industry produced money so fast that one of the jokes was even the alaska legislature couldn't waste at all. is what was cumulated.

the oil industry size generating all this money to an acute interest in politics because they are always interested in taxes and regulation so over time their influence over the legislator. who are some of the big companies that are operating out of here. the big three were and are. exxon mobil and conoco phillips. over time the names have changed as companies merged and absorbed each other. early in the day what is now conoco was really arco. but the big three players haven't changed much. big to our bp and exxon. you mentioned the influence over the legislature what did that mean for regulations

regarding oil in the state. speemac it meant it was always an enormous battle to get any new regulation in place and it really ran in the opposite direction. regulations ten to get looser. .. .. >> regulations were a big part of the problem in the spill. the federal oversight of tanker operations was too loose, and that's why the tanker hit the reef. and the state oversight of cleanup readiness were too loose, and that's why alaska -- the company that runs the system in prince william sown, the tanker terminal and escort

tugs -- was just unprepared for cleanup. so for the first three days or so, there was essentially no cleanup effort. and it was ideal weather. they had, uncharacteristically for prince william sound at that time of year, they had three days of really good weather, and they had this glossy lake of oil just spreading out from that tanker and essentially nothing happening to clean it up. >> can we explain to the people who are watching how does the oil process work? where's the oil pulled from, and then why was it even on a tanker truck or on a tanker and where was it going? >> sure. the oil is produced on alaska's north slope which is, you know, up in the arctic. really a harsh climate, harsh environment. tundra, permafrost country. so it's hard to operate in. you have to be careful not to disrupt things. there's a population of caribou

and polar bears that have to be protected. the industry has actually done a pretty good job on that part of it. so on north slope, on the north slope, the two big fields are kaparak and prudhoe bay, they're just gigantic fields. on the north slope it's put into a pipeline that runs 800 miles south across the middle of alaska to the port of valdese on prince william sound. and there it's loaded onto oil tankers and shipped to markets on the u.s. west coast. i think the exxon valdez was headed for long beach. it was carrying about 53 million gallons of oil, so it lost about 20% of its cargo. and the rest is history, sadly. >> can we actually talk about what, what happened on that day? >> sure. the tanker left valdese a little

bit before midnight and sailed out of valdese and through prince william sound, and at 12:04 a.m. on the 24th of march, which was good friday, it hit bly reef which was a well known and well-marked navigational hazard in prince william sound. what had happened before earlier in the day, there had been reports of icebergs in the tanker lanes. so the captain requested permission to deviate from the tanker lanes to avoid these icebergs in case they were still there. so it's a fairly tricky maneuver but nothing unusual. it happened all the time. and the failure was to return to the tanker lanes at the proper point, and instead the ship sailed into this reef. there were some conditions on the ship that contributed to the accident. the master was a guy named joe hazelwood. it was always a question as to whether he was drinking, and if

he was drinking, was it a factor. that was never established clearly, and i kind of doubt it myself. what he did was to put the third mate in charge of the bridge and go below to do paperwork. the tanker crews -- and this was identified as one of the factors in the accident -- were worked very hard. the size of the crews on these ships had been reduced over the years. so there was a constant battle with fatigue and overwork and stress for these crews. and that was identified as a contributing factor. at any rate, the third mate was in charge of the bridge. as a technical matter, he wasn't qualified to be doing what he was doing, and he shouldn't have been. but yet it comes back to the workload and the skinniness of the crews on those tankers. and all those things were addressed after the spill and, three relate chi are, remedied. we -- theoretically remedied. we haven't had another one, so

perhaps they were. >> how much oil was this tanker carrying, and how much spilled out? >> well, it had about 53 million gallons onboard, and they usually measure tanker cargoeses in barrels, so that was about 1.25 million barrels. in the spill it lost about 11 million gallons which, i think, was around 250,000 barrels. now, the question of how much it lost has been controversial, so the number i just gave you is really kind of the generally accepted figure. the reason it's hard to figure out how much oil it lost is that as the oil came out, water came in. so it was hard to get an exact measurement of how much it lost. >> you mentioned that this happened in prince william sound. where is that located, and if people had visited there prior to the oil spill, what would they have found there? >> prince william sound is located on the gulf of alaska. it's a couple of hundred miles south of anchorage.

north to south it's probably more or less in the middle of the state. so it's this beautiful, expansive, enclosed waters with islands and peninsulas and coastlines and rich populations of sea birds and fish and animals, bears, sea otters and so on. and anyone who's ever visited prince william sound has just been stunned by the natural beauty. and relatively untouched by man. you don't see much development at all. a few little fishing villages. normally you'd see a few fishing boats on the water, maybe some cargo vessels coming in with containers to the container port in valdese, but very little touch from the hand of man. and so then you have this tanker that spilled this oil and just fouled everything in sight. and it was, it was just a shock to the conscience and to the consciousness. how could this happen? >> what does -- when oil spills

into a large body of water like that, what does it do to it, how fast does it travel, do we know? >> the oil in and of itself doesn't travel very fast. it floats on the top, and it's carried by currents. it doesn't tend to disperse rapidly into the water if the water's calm, but if you get a storm -- as happened a few days after the spill -- then it gets churned up by the waves and mixes into the water. so when that happens, it is a there threat to fish and plankton and so on in the water. when it's on the surface, it's a threat to birds and sea otters and whales, because they have to come up and breathe. and then after it floats around and the wind churns it up, it hits the beaches and destroys the beach ecosystems. >> when was, i guess, exxon alerted that the spill had happened, and when did the actual efforts to try and stop it begin? >> well, i'm sure exxon was

alerted immediately by the crew of the ship. we're parked on bly reef in prince william sound, and we're leaking oil. i know for a fact that the captain of the ship got on the radio and called the coast guard in valdese immediately, and he said we're hard aground, and evidently we're leaking some oil. and he said on the radio that he was going to try and rock the boat and get off the reef and proceed. which was just a terrifying possibility. the ship was so badly damaged, there's a good chance it would have sunk or capsized if he had succeeded in doing that. well, he didn't. so the ship stayed on the reef and continued to leak oil. the response effort began almost immediately. the problem was there were so few resources and boats and booms and cleanup equipment available that not much could be done. so it started from a very tiny

beginning and ramped up over the rest of that spring and summer. >> whose responsibility was it for the oil spill, or did exxon have a plan for -- >> oh, a response plan? >> a response plan. did alaska have a response plan, or was -- >> the primary responsibility for the response plan fell on exxon as the shipper. in valdese the response plan, at least in the immediate aftermath of the spill, is carried out by the pipeline service company. when there is a spill, the company at the time was responsible for, i believe, the first three days of the response effort. so they're the ones who send out the boats and booms and the cleanup equipment to try and clean up the mess and prevent it from spreading. and after that first three days, the spiller is supposed to take over management of the response.

and exxon did that after a relatively short time. it was exxon running the spill. >> what, what is the process of cleaning up oil? what has to be done and then what are some of the challenges with an oil spill of that magnitude? >> well, to oversimplify it a bit, there are two aspects of cleanup. one is containment, try not to let it spread any farther than it is. and the other is removal. and both are very difficult. we had a huge area that had been, that had spilled oil on it, and then some of the oil, a lot of the oil hit the beaches and immersed itself in the sand and gravel and the plants and all that kind of stuff. so removal was very difficult. one of the responses to the spill was to use something called a dispersant. and the name of the dispersant used at the time was corexit. and what it's supposed to do is

to break the oil once it gets into the water into tiny, little smaller glob beautifuls that can be -- globules that can be processed in the water. oil is an organic substance, and given the right time and processes, nature will reprocess it into harmless things. the problem is corexit is pretty poisonous itself, and it's not clear that it actually did what what it was supposed to. there's some evidence that we ended up with two poisons in the water. so they tried corexit, and it was an abysmal failure. so they noticed all the oil in the rocks on the beach, of course, and they had two solutions to that, one of which was ridiculous and one of which was devastating. the ridiculous one, and there's a lot of photographs of this and video, they hired people to go out on the beach with essentially paper towels and wipe the oil off the rocks. [laughter] yes, they did. the second thing they did was

they decided, well, what we'll do is we'll get high pressure hot water washers, and we'll blast these oil beaches with this hot water, and that'll wash the oil back into the water, and then we can actually clean it up. they may have cleaned up some oil that way, i don't think it was much, but they did further damage to the ecosystems on those beaches with this hot water that was hot and also probably blasted some of the oil deeper into the sand. so the cleanup was, for the most part, an abysmal failure. i think i recall some claim that maybe they got 15% of the oil, but that's just, you know, a wild guess. nobody really knows. it's probably fair to say that for the most part the cleanup effort was a pr effort to show america and the world that something was being done to clean up this oil. one of the exxon officials said soon after the spill that they were going to clean up, clean it all up. and, of course, they didn't even

come close. >> how far did the oil spread? >> i think the farthest oil from the exxon valdez that was documented was, like, 12 or 1300 miles away. i mean, it flowed out of prince william sound on the currents and worked its way around and actually came up to the south end of cook inlet which is where anchorage is, a completely different body of water and, by sea, several hundred miles. we talked a few minutes ago about who had to come up with a response plan, and i told you that the primary responsibility hay on the spiller, which is true. but at the same time, all of the agencies, federal and state, that are in line to participate in a spill, they have to have their own response mans saying what they're going -- plans saying what they're going to do. so everybody in prince william sound, every agency in prince william sound was theoretically ready, and as a practical matter none of them were, but they were all sort of on the front line

immediately. anybody who had a presence in prince william sound had to jump in immediately. the oil spill had a devastating impact on the fishing economy, and other than people who worked for the oil industry in valdez, fishing was the mainstay of the prince william sound economy. outside of valdez it was the fishing or nothing, commercial fishing. they got salmon out of there, shrimp, herring, crab. and after the spill the fisheries were just closed because it would have only taken one oiled salmon to hit the market in seattle to just troy troy -- to just destroy the market for years to come. so they just shut it down and said no furbing. that was the first -- fishing. and that was the first impact. later on it turned out some of those were damaged, herring was an example and, i think, shrimping was another. so the fact that fishing had

been shut down and everybody was going broke forced this agonizing dilemma on the fishermen of prince william sound and that was should they hire themselves and their boats and their crews out to exxon for the cleanup. and there were some who just wouldn't do it. they just couldn't work for exxon. there were others who could, and it provoked hideous divisions in prince william sound, and this was a kind of derisive term for people who did work for exxon, they were called spillionaires. so the longer term result of all this disruption in prince william sound was real social disfunction. and that was one of the things that was intensively studied by the citizens' advisory council. and there were increases in every form of family and social dysfunction you could imagine. there was more drinking, there was more suicide, more divorces, more family violence.

everything bad that can happen to a small, sort of one-industry society happened to those people in prince william sound. >> how long did it take the cleanup until it was completed? >> the cleanup was intensive in the first year, and it continued, i think, in the summer for another year or two and then was discontinued because there just wasn't much left to do. it's worth saying that even today there's some oil under some beaches in prince william sound. not a lot, just a few thousand gallons now. but it is a testament to the persistence of this oil. that's a cold climate, cool at least, and once that oil gets below the surface, it doesn't degrade very fast. so that oil has not been consumed by nature and turned into routine compounds. >> did congress ever get involved? >> congress did get involved. they passed, i i mean, they did what congress does, they passed legislation, and they had hearings and did investigations.

the biggest legislative outcome of the spill was a law called the oil pollution act of 1990 which remedied a lot of the perceived defects that led to the exxon valdez spill. >> what were some of the key points in it that would affect oil? >> well, there were several. one is it required that tankers be escorted by two tugs all the way out of prince william sound, and those two tugs not only were there to assist the tanker if it became disabled or made the kind of blunder that led to the exxon spill, they also had response equipment on them and, in theory, would be able to begin the response immediately if tankers started leaking oil. if it had just been possible to put a boom around the exxon valdez, it would have helped. the other big change which was fiercely advocated by people in prince william sound -- and, indeed, by south carolina cans in general -- alaskans in

general even before the oil trade started, was to require double hulls on oil tankers. and a double hull is exactly what it sounds like. before double hulls you'd have a bunch of oil in the tanker, and then you'd have, you know, an inch of steel and then sea water. so any puncture would result in an oil leak. well, with double hulls on the size of tankers used in prince william sound, there are two hulls separated by about 11 feet of air space or ballast water or inert gas or whatever they want in there. so you could get a fairly serious puncture and have no leak. it was estimated after the spill that if the double hull, if the exxon valdez had had a double hull, the size of the spill would have been dramatically reduced. i think it's on the order of 80% less. it would have made a tremendous difference. so open 90, as people in the --

[laughter] oil spill bureaucracies called it, the oil pollution act of 1990 did require that ships coming into valdez and, indeed, i think all american ports that carried oil had to have double hulls by a certain deadline. they did make the deadline, and they all have double hulls. >> did this oil spill affect the oil industry's influence in the alaska legislature, and also did alaska impose any regulations? >> well, alaska law was revised, and regulations were revised to take cognizance of some of the lessons of this spill. as far as the mutt are call climate goes, you know, for a year or two alaskans were sort of down on the oil industry, but it passed. it's the biggest funding source of state government and, i'm sure, the biggest source of donations to the legislature. a lot of people work in the oil industry, a lot of people know that the benefits they get from the state come from money, taxes

from the oil industry. and then we have in the state this thing called the alaska permit fund which was made up entirely from part of the oil revenue. it now stands, i think, at around $60 billion. the income from that fund is now starting to pay for state government because oil revenues have declined as oil production has declined. one of the uses that fund has been put to is something called the alaska permanent fund dividend. and once a year the state sends every alaskan a check -- it varies in size. i think the lowest was 1,000, the highest was 2,200. once a year every alaskan gets that check, and we all know that it comes from oil money basically. now it's the earnings from that fund, but that fund came from oil money. so as i was saying earlier, oil and the oil industry just has this tremendous mind-share in alaska. at times it's definitely a love/hate relationship.

people, a lot of people hated the oil industry because of that spill. a lot of them still do because of the way it kind of controls our politics. but the fact is, you know, kind of like a bad marriage, it's not quite bad enough to get out of. >> can we talk about the relateness to the bp oil spill that happened off the coast of louisiana. were there any similarities, and did they learn anything from what had happened in alaska if. >> so there were no real parallels in the operational sense. two completely different sets of circumstances. what was similar for us alaskans watching from afar was the fact that the oil industry was just caught gnat-footed. now -- flat-footed. i'm sure they had all kinds of plans to deal with it when it did happen, but did any of it work? no, it did not. and that oil got loose and spread and spread and spread. so then what was very familiar

and very, to a considerable extent the same as up here was the impact on communities that lived along the coast of the gulf, especially the fishing communities, the cajuns and so on. so after that spill, a lot of people from that area came up here to look at what we had done in the prince william sound regional citizens advisory council in having a mechanism to give citizens a voice in how the oil industry operates in these areas. the macondo spill, i think, was much larger than the exxon valdez, and as i recall the flow just went on for day after day after day for an inconceivable amount of time whereas the exxon valdez was a one and done event. >> do you think that the oil industry is, has learned its lessons from valdez and the oil spill off the coast of louisiana? >> yes and no. yes because, you know, in the

immediate aftermath they did respond. i make no judgment as to the sort of sincerity of their response. if history's any guide, those lessons will be lost are are. the attention of the public will turn to other matters. but the attention of the oil industry on the issue of getting lighter regulations never wanes. they will always be there, and they will always be doing that. so i have a saying about capitalism that it's not quite as damning as it may sound. capitalism is a moral. it has no soul and no conscience. the goal of capitalism is to minimize cost and maximize revenue. it will always do that because that's in its dna. well, capitalism is a wonderful tool for increasing economic efficiency. but it comes with a whole set of risks, and we've seen the consequences in the gulf of mexico and in prince william

sound. so what society must never do is forget that it's up to society to set the rules under which capitalism operates. because as i say, capitalism in and of itself has no soul and no morality. it'll do what it has to to make money. and, again, it's up to society to never let up, because when we do, we get macondo and exxon valdez. >> anchorage, alaska, is the state's largest city. located in the south-central portion of the state, it's known as the air crossroads of the world. the city contains more than 40% of alaska's total population. next, we take our special look at alaska with a visit to the university of alaska to learn about the largest earthquake in american history. ♪ >> the chain of command, always

a red letter day in the life of the town. for the men it means the first payday of spring, working cargo in the hold and down on the docks. for the women, it brings fresh fruit and vegetables to valdez, the first since winter set in. and for the kids, it's always a little like christmas. they flock down to the dock when the ship comes in knowing the deckhands will greet them with fruit and candy. then at 536 under the mountains, the earth shivers. suddenly, the whole harbor at valdez begins to empty, drains almost dry. a subterranean chasm opens directly alongside the ship. slowly, it starts sinking down into it. soon only its masts can be seen from the top. the dock splinters, goes down with it while crewmen try p frantically to reach the people

on it. out in the gulf of alaska, the ocean bottom plunges then heaves upward a full 50 feet, and a wave starts breaking for shore. no one on the dock at valdez will survive; the long shoremen, the kids or their dogs. >> it happened at 5:36 p.m. everybody knows that time on march 27th, 1964. it was good friday, so a lot of the businesses and the city offices were closed that day, so a lot of people were at home preparing meals and not out at work. it was epicenterred in prince william sound which is southeast of here. it was a little closer to valdez than anchorage, and it was a 9.2

magnitude, which is pretty substantial. [laughter] it's the largest that's ever happened on the north american continent, and it's the second largest that has happened in the world. so this was substantial, it was a test of services and systems nobody had really gone through in what was a somewhat remote section of the united states. so the federal government had a presence here, certainly, but this was a challenge in so many ways. these are some of the things that we've pulled today. these, the numbered photographs all come from frank fox who was an air force pilot. he was actually flying around the city for the federal government, and they were getting photographs of the damage so they could get kind of a sense of scale of what was going on. a lot of these are the turnigan arm area. there was a fairly new subdivision, it's now known as earthquake park. most of them -- the bluff kind

of collapsed and went in waves on down the bank. and so it destroyed a number of homes in this area. i believe there were a few fatalities also in this area as you might expect looking at this level of damage. and the fact that a lot of people were at home when it happened. this is probably one to have better known -- one of the better known images. it's the jcpenney building, which was fairly new. it sustain thed, obviously, a huge amount of damage. there was at least one individual killed because of the collapse of these side panels on the building which were large side panels embraced up on the sides. they basically slid down. you can see that poor corvette that's been partly crushed by the slats falling down. that building was a total loss. i believe they actually felt the quake as far south as washington. i know they felt it in fairbanks which is about an eight-hour drive straight north.

i have been told there were actually some effects of it felt in places like louisiana, mississippi that the water in small ponds could be seen to be moving. so it was a pretty substantial quake that really affected -- there were people killed on the oregon and california coastline because of the tsunami that resulted. these are some documents from a woman who was a social worker. her name was margaret hofmeister, she was working in florida at the time doing primarily children's services, but she was a social worker. and because of her work in that role, she did a lot with kind of the civil defense response. so she kept a lot of those documents. so one of the things she kept was in this bulletin that was issued on sunday from the people of seward saying, you know, this is what you need to do. they're talking about the boiling water, what you need to do about outgoing mail, where the outpatient clinics are, all water must be considered contaminated. of course, all the water lines

were taken out by this. you know, add bleach to it to make it drinkable. you can't use the toilets, so they set up honey buckets, is the alaska term, latrines basically. gasoline was in limited supply. but there's also some concern about things like the potential for disease in a quake like this between not having palatable water and not having toilets that flush or working sewer systems. you have to be worried about disease. and so there's one requirement in here that typhoid shots will be given monday, march 30th, at outpatient clinics 9 a.m. until noon. you must, underlined, get yours no matter when you had your last shot, orders, which i find an interesting phrasing.

i sleep in long underwear you can't blame me, though, still having aftershocks at that point and if you wanted to get up and out of your apartment building in a hurry you probably stayed dressed i think that was pretty common for a lot of people. it's intregging for such a widespread and traumatic event it is still very much a local story. you know anchorage one felt one way and those in another had a different response an those unin hillside because they wouldn't have been affected as badly an it is a story it changed the

nature of the town for story it changed the nature of the town same kodiak so many projects on gathering information from survivors of the quake and their experience of it -- some of that was done immediately. it was done to kind of -- figure out what was doing in the future if something similar happens. there were a lot of psychological studying done of the people involved. but it really is a local thing. people it is the earthquake people in anchorage because they were fighting different things. almost lost their picture if a while over this. anchorage could still function. des largely fishing lost their economy because a lot of boats were out because of the tsunami qeafs plus support facilities were damage sod badly so there's -- too many factors to really say this is the alaska response.

even though it affected coven so much of alaska. there's a huge facebook group of people when live through the 1964 earthquake it it was created i believe shortly before the 50th anniversary which was a few years back. but they're incredibly active and people are are sharing their memories and their photograph we periodically get a call from somebody who says do you have material on this or i have my dad's photo would you be interested so still regular top pick of conversation and part that have is because -- we're a fairly seismically active place and hopefully not one that big any time soon general do without that. but it's -- it was so life changing of an event. it really is one of those lifetime events it is where were you then and if somebody lived there it they can tell you and tell you every built of it is engraved in their memory. >> the 2018 summer solstice

marked 113th annual midnight sun game in fairbanks, alaska, amateur baseball game held at the home of the gold starts around 10:30 p.m. and because the sun is out for nearly 24 hours, there's no additional lighting. up next we continue our special look at alaska as we speak with mary are shields first woman to complete the and sled dog trails. mary, what was it like the first time you crossed that finish line? >> well it was relief i've been traveling for 28 days. out in the cold --

and then it was melancholy too because i was loving the traveling an i didn'tment it to come to an i end but i did wantt to come to an end and it was quite an exciting finish we went down a shoot made out of snow fence in -- a sheet and hundreds of people came out at 3:00 in the morning and cheer dogs in and i could see something at the finish line i couldn't tell what it is to be out in the cold it warmed up -- and sometimes -- eyelashes get frosty and they stick together so you take your hand out of your warm mitten an thaw them out the but i wasn't going to do that the last mile of the race so i kept going until i could tell it was waiting for me at the finish line, and it was a grow of women from gnome with their big fur park an banner they were waving or it was hanging over them or something, and banner says it was 1974, that banner said you've come a long way, baby. very nice welcome after thousand miles on the trail. >> had you always been

interested in dog sledding or what was your interest many dog sledding begin? >> what it was for a long tomb i came to alaska to work for the camp girl teaching swimming lessons out in the village and go to village to village to village but we were out in the summer so i didn't see dog teams but i saw them tied up but i didn't think those were sled dogs. and then -- after -- after the end of the summer i decided i wanted to maker my home here in alaska after i had snow shoes and skis cross country skis to get around if i wanted to go exploring but the middle of october friends of mine came down on the train my mall came on the train if i had mail the engineer tooted whistle i would go to the track this is day he was tooting whistle and that train are came to a stop so something special is coming so low and behold they come down to see if i was still alive. sometimes people go off and adventure and nobody ever sees them again and i was a perfect candidate for that category. i was the brownie dropout i knew

nothing about living out in the woods. mike and worked on archaeology digout and job was finished this was a few years previously -- they asked if they could stay there to learn how to live the way they live and they were welcomed and they learned how to preserve berries and went on a moose hunt and butcher a motion and learn to drive a dog team. and mike said what you need mary is a few sled dogs and just so happened they still have some dogs at home that they weren't using anymore so they wept back to fair banks a couple of southbound trains later, again, that engineer just wheeling on whistle and stop and they open up and out comes a little black dog. then a big red dog and another big red fluffy dog. but old gray dog sled, then a mountain of purina dog chow in

checkerboard packages and harnesses and other instruction that came with the little beginningers kit, taped on back that have old dog sled and had had everything i needed to know and just two sentences. first sentence says, dear mary there's nothing to it. second sentence says, just put the dogs in front of the sled. period. and that's really all there's to it dogs inside of the sled i put the the harnesses on. i don't know if they were upside down or right but i tie the dog to the front of the sled and they got in a big dog fight so i put one off to -- pull this one off, and this went on and on and on i was cry, scream screaming finally dogs ran down the trail to the cabin. i made many trips dragging all of that dog food home but that's when i got my first dog and i've had them ever since. >> how have you used them to train the sled? >> more than i did about dog sledding because they have run from mike an sally when they were running i just kind of -- do what made sense i worked with

a lead dog all for the first week. then i added one of the red dog and i finally put all three together and they went to the same -- direction without fighting and i just praised them and gave them little treats when they did the right thing. >> when did the idea of -- racing dogs come into -- >> i met my future husband to be we went on a camping trip thanks giing -- in 19 -- 197 0 i think but in november the days are getting darker and colder and -- shorter. so for the next 20 we went on month long camping trip but in month of march getting brighter were warmer sunnier and i just loved it. but one time we went to visit a friend at christmas time, and december is not a good time to travel because it is drk and cold an trails aren't this. and we have the snow quite a bit of the way and when we got there the the afternoon of christmas

day, we spent a week or so and when we came home our trail back on snow shoe it is in fronts of the dogs and when i got home i started hearing rumors about this race -- where the race committee hired people that lived in the villages to break trail. so it was a chance it see a thousand miles of alaska and not have to break trail on snow shoes so i was called up there to the committee an said i would like to win your race who are you i said mary, they said -- how many dogs do you have? i said six. they said you have to have eight. i'll get two more. okay you're in the race. now you have to complete a 200 mile qualifying race to get in the race. because some of the years they have 100 teams and if five or ten people got lost at the same time or got in trouble it would be hard to rescue them so i was lucky to get in on early year and there were 49 teams that year, and two of who were women allowing also from fairbanks and myself and i had a wonderful experience then. >> can we get a little bit of

background -- i guess on the race -- how long is it? and what does it consistent of? >> it's a 1,049 years all the way up to no, ma'am, alaska, through the center of the state of alaska -- and in 1925 they have a epidemic and they brought the via dog team and saved many lives so that race celebrates that event when dogs came to the rescue of people. >> and it's -- close to the alaska range that goes through mountains, it goes on the yukon river and travels and goes along parking lot ocean travel ares if in all different kinds of terrain and durchght places. now the trails part of the national historic trail system and quite well marked then you might see a mark around the tree and nothing for a couple of miles. but now it is well marked and -- they have a bicycle race on it. i did a bike, and they have a

junior on it, and -- so it's quite well used. before you and your friend decided to compete in the race was there ever a history of women competing? >> that was just a second year they had it and first year they were just trying to see if the frail really connected. all men that went that year i don't think there were too many of them but ten or so. do you know what was the reaction? >> i don't know when i signed up i know when i pull into a check point sometimes men there were there took off and kept coming and checker that was taken care of all of a sudden that's interesting they were going to spend the night there. and i had a feeling they didn't want to be seen travel aring with me so -- i was only going to slow as a woman and they didn't want to be -- you know looked at that. >> can we talk about your first day and i guess the first overnight -- of the iditarod were you nervous

at all? >> yeah, because we were traveling along the ocean i had never been mushing near the ocean. i didn't know where i was it was dark, of course, at night and i was a little wondering whether it was such a good idea, and everyone else was pretty much faster than i was. i was getting passed all of the time because i had only eight dogs and i got to the first check point and picked up my supplies and i made it to the first check point i can probably make it to the second one. i broke it down into little -- 50 mile segments figured i can do 50 miles i can do another 50 miles and then -- as trail went on i got more and more comfortable, and then really enjoyed it. >> so i guess you have thing dog sledding aspect of it. what about setting up camp where were you camping? >> his own camp, you're in a race you're not camping. you're trying to get to the finish line. faster than all of those other teams. so refind dogs were happiest and

healthiest an put out best performance if we run them on race on the seam kind of routine we've been training them on and most people put on one 2,000 miles in training before the race begins. you can't ask dog to do this unless you've trained properly and gotten muscles built up to do that so we run them four or five miles of a stretch depending on trail conditions before the dogs want to stop you full over a and make them stop and you rest them equal amount of time fur or five hours and then dogs will almost recuperate 100%. the musher -- would love to recuperate 100% but you're doing the the chores at the rest stop where dogs are sleeping so it's different thing. and you don't have time to -- make a camp fire and melt snow and make their food. you have a cooler like you take on a picnic it's all mixed up and snot warm anymore but it's not frozen, you can scoop it out in and feed dogs and they can --

gobble it up and go to sleep and digest it while they're rest you don't want them to take off with a belly full of food because they'll regurgitate it and you would love it see meals down the trail for mushers but there isn't anything like meals on skis you sent out your food with gunny sacks of dog food and it's not this box of macaroni and cheese or dinners but real meals that you've cooked and then you've frozen and then on trail you thaw it out and warm it up and eat it. pizza you might imagine is very popular. you're craving high fat content when you're out in the cold days and night and pizza is surface area to lean up near your camp fire to have a hot meal in no time. a friend of mine was sponsored by taco bell, and he ate burritos for a thousand miles with a disstingt cooking style with five or six burritos down inside husband parka and let it body heat thaw it out and hungry he would fish arranged until a brito above body temperature and

eat it as we wept down the trail and one occasion he had a lost burrito for four days and arranged it was in the snow pants quite thawed out his dog found it for him. i'm sure he never autoanother brew toe as long as he lived. >> you're not just there dining on burrito and pizza but making a fire, melting snow chopping up to put in the cooler for next stop down the trail. you have your chore done you have to get rest yourself but you don't pitch a tengt you're not going to get that comfortable you slow down on your shed you have your big par can and loud alarm on your wrist windchill and ten minutes alarm goes off you have to get up and take off. >> how long did it take you to the complete the race? >> it took me 28 days which was very long and record time if i believe is -- 8 days, four hour and 14 minutes so a lot has changed. >> sit down --

chas had the the watch? >> i've had physical problems i broke my hip and had to have my leg amputated so i haven't been on a sled for two years but i intend to be on it this comes winter but i like to go on camping trips and get out and see who my neighbors are. see the track and -- yeah i have five dogs. i wanted it to mush until i was 60 that seemed it like a reasonable -- you know a mature view point of it and now i'm 73 so i don't need a great big number of dogs that can't handle it but i have five of the sweetest dogs in all of alaska. very nice dogs. what would your advice be to anyone who is watching -- who wants to -- to join the iditarod or to compete? >> if they're not a dog musher to begin with i would encourage them to volunteer to work out on the trail being one of the checkered at the check point and help with the start or finish, and then run dog for a couple of

years go on camping trips learn how to take care of yourself. and then sign up for the race when it is ultimate thing to do with your dog team don't rush it. because -- you can get yourself in serious trouble if you go out before you know what to do. >> juneau is the capitol city of alaska located in the state's panhandle with a population of over 30,000. it's the the most reare mote capitol city in the country. there are no roads connecting juneau to the rest of the state. despite this, it's a popular destination for cruise shut ups, ups -- cruiseships and visit glaisher coming up we continue our special look at alaska as author hayes talks about her book blond indian and alaska native memoir.

i was born in june owe at the end of the second second world war my mother was full blooded of the eagle side of the clan of the world cup. and i never knew my father so i don't know what nationality he was. but luckily clinket nation follows progrtion so i belong to the same nation and clan that my mother belongs so. well, when i was a girl growing up in the village, my grandmother taught me songs, and when i was young i had blond hair when i was small i had blond hair and she called me blond inked general and taught me a little song and a little dance and she would dance with me while i sang that song. during that time when i was growing up juneau was, of course, smaller than it is now.

i think we had one stoplight that only blinked it didn't really -- intend to stop any cars. and there weren't that many cars anyway. i think there was one bus. my -- aunt the and uncle george lived where close to where we are now, and sometimes there would be a bus to douglas but we always walked and juneau was -- quite a bit different it was territory, and we were under territory y'all laws and it was -- recently colonized so there was still a lot of -- colonization and some efnghts are, of course, there's a good deal of discrimination. there's good deal of oppression, there's a good deal of taking. clinket people inhabited this land for --

10,000 years or more had intricate laws where by certain parts of the land could be used by certain clans, and a sophisticated legal system and, of course, all of those done away with with new law, new schools, new religion, new language, new everything came into alaska because of gold and we were poor. we had a property in the juneau indian village that was result of a town site project at -- new people brought in, and juneau is not a traditional term nangt village. the permanent village is further out by the glacier but it became a village when --

the town started growing and so -- when they established the town june know indian village they had certain parts and my family still owns one of the restricted land properties very small -- big enough to put a family house on, and that was our economic status. my grandmother door worked in kanry during the summer and my grandfather fished and my uncle fished. and my mother did similar work, of course, i didn't know my father and it was 1945 when i was born, and in those days in any place in the united states that -- that was very difficult in a lot of issues raised. and i wasn't particularly

included in many of the native functions during those times. they were not my grandmother and mother were not as -- they didn't participate as much in native functions. when i was very small, my grandmother would take me to different parties. they call them, and some people call them -- [inaudible conversations] and i remember doing that. but my mother was sort of ostracized and so she did not participate in many of the native functions and, of course, i wasn't welcomed very welcome in most of the functions and so -- i picked a lot of berryies i have to say i was unsupervisorred wild child to the degree when i was 15 years old, my mother had had enough and she moved us to california. where i stayed for 25 long years

and never came home. when we moved to california my mother took the soonest opportunity to go off on her oin. she ended up moving to washington, d.c. staying on the east coast for several years. while it has been my lifelong practice to cling to the west coast, and she kept in touch but said she would never go back to alaska never because of the difficulty she had had, and that was one of the very serious considerations that i had to spend a lot of time thinking about when i decided to come back home. when i turned 40, my life was in shambles. i was broke, my children were grown or living with their father. i was penniless and i had been

trying to combat for a few years, and i just turned 40 and said -- let me go home or let me die with my thoughts facing north. and it took me eight months to get from san francisco to living in my car -- standing in food lines sleeping in shelters. and when i got to kitchencan i camped out from may to october and then -- i found a job, found a place to stay. sent for my mother, sent for my children and two years later i made it all the way back home and when i came back home, i wasn't sure what to expect as far as whether people would remember us. but mountains were still the same, eagles were still the same, the place was still the same, and the people and culture remembered us and accepted us and welcomed us back home. we were walking downtown on front street and somebody from across the street yelled, daisy,

daisy -- and remembered her and from that day on, she was happy to be home. to have generations of my family back here in juneau my grandchildren live here and great grandchildren live here, means more to me than i could ever say. my mother lived last few years of her life here in juneau so she rest in family plot in ever green cemetery. i don't believe that she would be -- i don't believe that she would be, she would find rest anywhere else. >> national park is a 6 million acre preserve located in interior alaska, it's home to denali known as mount mckinley had 20,310 feet is north america

highest peak up next we continue our special look at alaska, by learning about the history of fur farms in the state. fur farms in alaska buried from being very prominent to being barely noticeable over the two centuries that they operated. when the russians first brought boxes to the ocean islands, it was a very big industry for the russians and then the americans took over. it was the third largest industry behind gold mining and salmon fishing and it was important enough that the governor hired a veterinarian to do take care of the fur farms the veterinarian was the only veterinarian in the territory. except for one other who had

quit fur farming. the very first fur farm started in 1749, it was -- a small start and coming to hunt for -- sea otters. stop at the commander island which ships often did for the winter before trying to make the crossing to atu in islands. and he picked up a litter of boxes. these were very special foxes because they were arctic foxes that did not turn white in the winter they remained dark. they were called blue foxes. and since foxes were trapped in the winter because the coat was thickest and because dark furs were very popular in moscow, and even more importantly in china

which wases the big buyer of furs. he picked up this special litter, took it to atu, brought it in, talked to the atualutes about not killing these animals and feeding them in the winter and stayed there for two years and he said now i'm going to come back after a while and we'll trap these foxes -- andly give you trade goods. and atu island is at the very tip of the illusions. and if you look at a map you see that the illusions make kind of a sweeping curve and if you plol it with your eye it is goes at the commander islands and it became a peninsula and that was the route that the russians were taking for this new -- land with allful these rich furs. they have already -- exterminated almost the sea

otters and the islands. and they would soon -- exterminate a fox and -- or almost on the commander islands as well. but at the time of the purchase of alaska, which was 1867, the russians had quite a number of farms going. whrarnlgest one both in the russian and the american period most of those were using islands as their fences the foxes do not like to swim. so -- most of them were while running foxes -- being fed by food that was put out and then as it became more sophisticated -- they trap houses -- where they fed foxes and had a

little -- a little door that would open when a fox walked over and at time they unlocked that door and then they sorted the foxes but as they became more popular, soon there were all kiengdz of animals being raised in cages. on a mainland martin and mink and skunks and chinchilla rabbits mostly in peoples 'houses so yeah, what a fur farm looked like very greatly over the two centuries. first had been used for utilitarian purposes for back to genesis and they were very important in the north. china is cold, russia is cold. hats, coats, linings, at the same time there was a parallel market for the elegant women those palaces in -- in russia were not heated.

and to have a fur inlooing for your dress or bodice was wonderful for looks and for its warmth and then -- of course it just proves for beauty. and during the early -- period of the automobile those were open cars and furs were very popular, well in 1930, which was close to the peak, there were more than 600, the population of the territory at that time was 60,000 so there was 60,000 people in more than 600 fur farms. things that really changed fur farming, of course, was the market. and warming materials were developed bit americans, the germans were still using fur. but at the end of that time

suddenly you can get warm clothes without fur. so synthetic market had a big impact and then people who were offended by the idea of killing foxes and so on -- say well we don't need this at all because we know longer need it for warmth. and that helped peta get started. and the protest against that. but fashion changed after the war a lot of people moved to california. didn't need it for a fur coat and there's a big western movement and -- the new rising people who rule on the tide after the war were buying washing machines and cars and -- they were not interested in getting fancy first so it was the market that really did in the -- industry. the last fur farm i believe closed in 1993, alaska is, has a

lot of boom and bust centuries including fur farming and so people led on to something else. after the war there was a lot of construction. we had a huge construction boom. at that time gold mining was also declining but something new and then, of course, oil came. and so people were pretty flexible about moving on to something else. i think there's some misunderstanding about fur farms in their cruelty. at least in -- on islands so it was not industry of deliberate cruelty and everyone was a little bit ignorant about consequences, the unintended consequences.

>> twice a month c-span cities tour take book tv and american history tv on the road to explore the literary life and history of a selected city. working with our kabl partners we visited various lit tear and historic sites as we visit you can watch past interviews and tours online by going to booktv.org and selecting c-span cities tour from the series drop down at the top of the page. or by visiting c-span.org/cities tour. you can also follow the c-span cities tour on twitter, for behind the scene image and video from our visits the handle is at c-spans cities. as part of our year long they made a long journey to juneau, alaska capital of the 49th street this morning on booktv, an american history tv, will feature our stops across alaska. showing you the state's natural

beauty and and delve into alaska unique history and literary culture. booktv is alaska weekends continues now with a few authors who have peared on booktv in the past. first up rickey odd reports on the exxon valdez oil spill from moment it began on march 24th, 1989, through the residents pursuit of punitive damages from exxon, this program is from 2008. >> thank you all for coming tonight, and thank you village books and the two cosponsors for putting this wonderful evening together. we're going to dive right in here -- former alaska senator ted stevens promised that note -- [applause] he promised not one drop of oil would be spilled into prince william's town. not one